unlicensed assistive personnel

BACKGROUND: A 15 million health workforce shortage is still experienced globally leading to a sub-optimal healthcare worker-to-population ratio in most countries. The use of low-skilled care assistants has been suggested as a cost-saving human resource for health strategy that can significantly reduce the risks of rationed, delayed, or missed care. However, the characterisation, role assignment, regulation, and clinical governance mechanisms for unlicensed assistive workforce remain unclear or inconsistent...

OBJECTIVE: To modify an existing instrument used to measure the attitudes of perinatal nursing caregivers about pregnant women with substance use disorder (SUD) and to psychometrically test the new instrument: Caregiver Attitudes on Substance Use in Pregnancy (CASUD-OB). DESIGN: Instrument modification and psychometric testing of results from a modified instrument. SETTING: Multi-hospital health care system in the midwestern United States...

BACKGROUND: Nationwide nursing shortages have led to higher patient-to-nurse ratios, nursing burnout, and decreased quality of care. LOCAL PROBLEM: Staffing challenges and nursing burnout were becoming growing concerns and success was contingent upon efficient use of existing resources. METHODS: Direct observation current state assessment was completed on medical-surgical specialty units to better understand work activities of registered nurses (RNs) and unlicensed assistive personnel (UAPs)...

Health care has forever changed in early 2021. Three years after the beginning of the COVID-19 world pandemic, we must seriously look at the role of the nurses and the model we deploy to ensure our health system's viability. In this article, the authors offer insights into the journey of deconstructing the nurses' role and planning for a Co-Caring Model where virtual and bedside nurses practice and unlicensed assisting personnel work as a team to care for those in need of health care. We also provide a list of actions for nurse leaders to consider...

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this review is to describe the nature and extent of the literature regarding unlicensed assistive personnel's involvement in delivering care to persons with or at risk of delirium. INTRODUCTION: Initiatives that promote the involvement of unlicensed assistive personnel in providing additional supervision and care to persons with or at risk of delirium have been developed. Since no standardized approach guides unlicensed assistive personnel's involvement with persons with or at risk of delirium, and since inconsistent training and expectations may pose a threat to the safety and quality of care, it is essential to clarify their role with persons with or at risk of delirium...

Epinephrine is the first line of treatment for anaphylaxis which can occur outside a medical setting in community environments like schools. Patients with diagnosed IgE-mediated food allergy at risk of anaphylaxis are prescribed self-injectable epinephrine and given an individualized anaphylaxis action plan. As students, such patients/families provide their school with completed medication forms, a copy of their anaphylaxis plan, and additional student-specific epinephrine. However, students approved to self-carry prescribed self-injectable epinephrine may forget to do so or have other reasons for lacking prescribed epinephrine such as familial inability to fill the prescription due to cost or other access barriers...

Hourly rounding impacts multiple patient care outcomes. The task of rounding has several obstacles and is made more time-consuming by donning and doffing protective personal equipment kits, especially in the setting of the COVID-19 pandemic. To improve the frequency of hourly rounding performance on the unit, nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel on an orthopaedic/trauma unit at an academic hospital in the Midwest United States were introduced to potential interventions in several PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycles using quality improvement methodology...

A stock inhaler program provided access to rescue medication (albuterol sulfate) for school children. School staff were provided with a standardized protocol for medication administration. We hypothesized licensed nurses were more likely to report compliant events compared to unlicensed school staff. Stock inhaler events were defined as either compliant or non-compliant. A school protocol compliance score was calculated using the total number of compliant events divided by the total number of all events. The protocol for administration indicated 4 puffs for mild respiratory distress and 8 puffs for severe respiratory distress; therefore, events were defined as compliant if the dose of medication was divisible by 4...

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School nurses and unlicensed assistive personnel (UAPs) are essential to the health and wellness of school children. However, most US schools do not have a full-time licensed nurse. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school nurses and UAPs have been integral in ensuring that the health needs of students were met. They have seen a marked increase in their responsibilities included implementing COVID-19 mitigation strategies, screening for symptoms, testing students and staff, conducting contact tracing and data collection, and ensuring the implementation of rapidly changing COVID-19 guidelines and protocols for schools...

BACKGROUND: Health care aides are unlicensed support personnel who provide direct care, personal assistance, and support to people with health conditions. The shortage of health care aides has been attributed to recruitment challenges, high turnover, an aging population, the COVID-19 pandemic, and low retention rates. Mobile apps are among the many information communication technologies that are paving the way for eHealth solutions to help address this workforce shortage by enhancing the workflow of health care aides...

To evaluate the characteristics of the reported workplace violence in a psychiatric intensive care unit (PICU) by analyzing an electronic hospital incident reporting system (IRS). One hundred thirty reports were retrieved from January 2017 to June 2020, referring to assaults committed by patients (71% males) with an average age of 29.8 years (SD, 14.9). The most frequent psychiatric diagnosis was a neurodevelopmental disorder (33%). Physical aggression (84%) was more frequent than the other types of aggression...

BACKGROUND: In South Korea, the professional role of nurse has been redefined from "assistant to" to "partner of" doctors as part of an overall national health promotion strategy. PURPOSE: This descriptive survey was designed to describe the current status of administrative dispositions related to nurses in South Korea. METHODS: Data were collected between January 2014 and December 2018. The raw data were obtained from 3,553 public health centers nationwide after a request for the disclosure of information related to the administrative disposition of nurses in each city and province...

The Korean Medical Association opposes the illegal attempt to implement the physician assistant (PA) system in Korea. The exact meaning of 'PA' in Korea at present time is 'Unlicensed Assistant (UA)' since it is not legally established in our healthcare system. Thus, PA in Korea refers to unlawful, unqualified, auxiliary personnel for medical practitioners. There have been several issues with the illegal PA system in Korea facing medicosocial conflicts and crisis. Patients want to be diagnosed and treated by medically-educated, licensed and professionally trained physicians not PAs...

Schools often provide medication management to children at school, yet, most U.S. schools lack a full-time, licensed nurse. Schools rely heavily on unlicensed assistive personnel (UAP) to perform such tasks. This systematic review examined medication management among K-12 school nurses. Keyword searches in three databases were performed. We included studies that examined: (a) K-12 charter, private/parochial, or public schools, (b) UAPs and licensed nurses, (c) policies and practices for medication management, or (d) nurse delegation laws...

BACKGROUND: The largest statewide hospital system collaborated with local nursing schools to provide a patient care internship program for nursing students. The goal was to create a pipeline of future nurses by equipping students for work in the clinical setting and promoting nurse retention. PURPOSE: The purpose of this project was to determine the correlation between the student nurse internship program on the interns' NLCEX-RN pass rates, retention rates for the local hospitals, cost-savings, students' confidence, and program satisfaction...

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine whether clinical inertia exists in the care of patients with urinary incontinence and to test the effects of an educational intervention designed to alleviate inertia related to care of urinary incontinence. DESIGN: Single-group, pretest/posttest design. SUBJECTS AND SETTING: The sample comprised 132 participants practicing in 6 medical-surgical inpatient care units at an urban hospital in Almería, Spain; 66 (50%) were RNs, and all other participants were unlicensed assistive personnel...

As the demand on time and resources of licensed health care professionals increases and cost-containment measures challenge organizations, the use of unlicensed assistive personnel for patient care activities increases. Emphasis on safe and effective care delivery remains crucial when registered nurses (RNs) delegate certain tasks and aspects of patient care. The principles of delegation from the American Nurses Association and the National Council of State Boards of Nursing include the responsibility and accountability of the RN for patient care outcomes...

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to assess the differences in patient complications as well as patient and staff satisfaction between a mixed-skill unit and an all-registered nurse (RN) unit. BACKGROUND: It is recognized that nursing care delivered by RNs results in better outcomes; however, more evidence is needed to support a change to an all-RN unit. METHODS: A mixed unit with RNs and unlicensed assistive personnel was compared with an all-RN unit...

A complex healthcare environment requires an optimal nursing skill mix at a reasonable cost to sustain safe, quality, and efficient patient care. An innovative, unlicensed assistive personnel residency program was developed to fill open positions with a skillful, confident, and engaged clinical technician workforce. The program resulted in highly skilled and confident clinical technicians, a 4% increase in engagement scores, and a 14% increase in retention rate.